Three Black Swans

by Caroline B. Cooney

  Matt Vianello sighed with relief.

  He fell asleep.

  * * *

  FRIDAY

  Even later

  CLAIRE LINNEHAN SAT as stiffly on her bed as if it were a park bench.

  It’s two against one, you’re outnumbered. How could Missy say that?

  It was already coming true. Claire was not part of the first meeting. She’d have to meet Genevieve sometime, because Missy was correct—there was no escape. But Missy and Genevieve would become a pair ahead of her. They’d be sisters while Claire sat alone in a room lit by a glowing computer, as if her only friends were electronic.

  She returned to an Internet source she had bookmarked earlier, a site about the biology of multiple births. She had bookmarked the page on twins, but now she scrolled to the page about triplets.

  Triplets could be three separate eggs in the mother, in which case they were fraternal triplets. Plain old brothers and sisters who happened to be born at the same time. Missy, Claire and Genevieve were visibly not fraternal triplets.

  Triplets could be two eggs, one of which split once, so that those two were identical twins, while the second egg didn’t split, making the third baby a fraternal twin. Claire hoped this was not her own situation. How ghastly if even among triplets one could be an outsider.

  Or triplets could come from a single egg, which split once, and then one of the splits split again. These were identical triplets.

  Claire imagined Missy and Genevieve smiling as they talked. Each smile would tip outward in the same way, and each girl would very slightly bite her lower lip, so quickly only a mother would see. Their moms would scowl. “Don’t bite your lip, honey,” they would say.

  And Genevieve’s mother? Did she have the same complaint because she had the same daughter?

  Who was Genevieve’s mother?

  Who was Claire’s?

  Claire’s parents were sleeping. They were separated from Claire only by closets. They still occupied a world without identical twins and triplets. They knew nothing.

  Or did they know everything?

  She thought, Missy will invite Genevieve for a sleepover. There won’t ever be a Claire-over again.

  Her cell phone rang. It was Missy. Claire snatched it up.

  “I called her!” said Missy. “Clairedy, it’s incredible. I really liked her. Although I think she could be a little bossy. Now listen. We’re going in to the city tomorrow morning just like I planned. She’s taking the LIRR into Penn Station and we’ll take Metro-North into Grand Central. We’ll meet under the clock at ten-fifteen. We’re pretending to go to the Metropolitan Museum to see Byzantine art.”

  “What do you mean, ‘we’?” said Claire sullenly.

  “Clairedy, come on. I’ll get the train in Stamford and you catch the same train in New Rochelle. I’ll be in the front car, waiting for you.”

  “How can you be so calm? Our lives were carved up and served separately at birth! You should stay home vomiting.”

  “Claire, she’s our sister, not our death sentence. If we don’t meet, how will we know for sure?”

  “It sounds as if you’ve settled that without me.”

  “She wants to call you, Claire. Would that be all right?”

  “Missy. This is not a cute little excursion into a cute little past with a cute little triplet. This is the end of our families. We have to stay home tomorrow and sit with our parents while they see the video.”

  “I don’t care about them right now,” said Missy. “I need Genevieve.”

  SATURDAY MORNING

  Long Island

  NED CANDLER’S GOLF game had been canceled. He stared out the kitchen window at the pouring rain. Ned didn’t like being home. He liked leaving home. He liked parties and movies, action and games, dinners out and dances. He told himself to make a list: Chores I Have Put Off Long Enough. There wasn’t a chore out there Ned felt like doing.

  The coffeepot stopped sputtering. Ned poured himself a cup, added sweetener and milk, stirred and sipped. No matter how much money you spent on your coffee maker, it didn’t compete. Coffee from chains, diners and restaurants was always better.

  Now what? The Candlers had Saturday newspaper delivery, but he wasn’t in the mood to trot down the driveway in this pouring rain. He turned on the kitchen computer and checked the news. Many things in the world were going wrong. He felt unable to read the details. He had problems of his own.

  He and Allegra fell into a maligned category: people who live beyond their means. They lived in a town they couldn’t afford, drove cars whose payments they could barely make and wore fine clothing they had to charge. Now he couldn’t even ask his wealthy grandmother for help. She wasn’t wealthy anymore.

  But the big worry was Vivi, who had become an academic star, something she certainly had not inherited from her parents. Vivi would want to go to a top college, which would cost top dollar. Ned didn’t have medium dollars. He didn’t have dollars. He had debts.

  He checked his e-mail. He always had a huge number of messages waiting. Corporate Giving was a strange little department. It didn’t “lead” anywhere. It just sat on the edges of the real activity. When they were young, he and Allegra had been sure their jobs would “lead” somewhere. They expected to be movers and shakers. Instead, Allegra was just another drone, working hard to achieve little, while Ned had the same responsibilities he’d started with twenty years ago. He loved what he did and was proud of it; he truly helped people. It would never pay more, but he couldn’t stand the idea of changing jobs. He and Allegra had a social calendar to die for. Keeping up with the invitations was not cheap. He couldn’t afford to take Vivi to look at colleges, never mind pay for her to attend one.

  He hardly knew Vivi anymore. Back when she was little, just another skinny dark-haired child, the whole thing seemed like wallpaper. The decision he and Allegra had made was background. Elevator music. The older Vivi got, the less that seemed to be true. When Ned looked at her now, the decision would rise up and look right back at him. He would feel a low-level panic, knowing what people would think. He would look at his beautiful wife, for whom he would do anything. He and Allegra almost never talked about it. They didn’t need to. They could tell when the other was panicking.

  Allegra’s panic was deeper. She was the mother. She would be judged more harshly.

  Ned Candler did not believe that conspiracies could last. There was no such thing as a permanent secret. One day their own secret would be exposed.

  Since he couldn’t drink coffee without reading a paper, he scanned a half-read Wall Street Journal. The paper was folded open to a strange and beautiful phrase he had circled with the thick blue tip of his favorite fountain pen. He knew what his Grandmother Candler would say about that: “You could have bought a single plastic ballpoint pen, but no, you have to have a dozen fountain pens, each of which costs a fortune.”

  He couldn’t concentrate.

  The black swans in his life kept swimming into view.

  * * *

  SATURDAY MORNING

  Connecticut

  MISSY SKITTERED INTO the kitchen. She felt as if her fingers and eyes and hair were separating from her body, about to float around the room and attach themselves elsewhere. She wanted to be with Genevieve Candler so much it was like starving to death.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” said her father. “You’re up early.”

  I’ll get him to drive me to the station now, thought Missy. I can’t wait here. I’m about to meet the long-lost identical twin I faked. I can’t look at Mom and Dad or even talk to them. And if I’m going to coax Claire into coming, I sure can’t have my parents listening in. “Morning, Dad.”

  “We’re working on vacation plans,” said her father.

  “I was thinking of Savannah,” said her mother. “Isn’t ‘Savannah’ a pretty word? There was a girl named Savannah in your first grade, Missy. Whatever happened to Savannah?”

  “But is there a lot to do in Savannah?” asked her fat
her.

  Missy could not take more twitter. “There’s a trip into New York today. People are going to the Metropolitan Museum to look at Byzantine art. One kid canceled and I get to go. All you have to do is drive me to the train station.”

  “Oh, Missy, that will be such fun!” cried her mother. “Or will it? Isn’t Byzantine art mostly sad thin saints? I always want a saint who’s happy. But I think they often die difficult deaths, and naturally they’re a little depressed.”

  Oh, my God, I love my parents, thought Missy. They’re nuts, but they’re mine. I have to get out of here now, before I’m crippled by loving them.

  “You’ll need money,” said her father. “Train, subway pass, museum fee, lunch.” He peeled off tens and gave them to her.

  If she told Dad she didn’t need money, it would draw attention to the expedition. She took the cash. “Thanks.”

  “Keep your cell phone on,” said her mother.

  “And stay with the group,” said her father.

  “Who’s the teacher?” her mother wanted to know.

  “I’ll stay with the group,” she promised, avoiding teacher identification. She hated lying. Of course, they had lied every single time they claimed to be her parents.

  They’ll still be my parents, won’t they? Our family won’t dissolve, will it?

  Not surprisingly, her mother had difficulty locating her purse. Her parents discussed possible purse locations, a routine conversation that normally made Missy crazy, but this morning she wanted to weep.

  Half of her yearned to spill everything. Half of her was desperate for Claire to come too. Half of her was sickened by the physiology of this. Was she really identical to two other people, from her freckles to her toenails? It was unnatural. Half of Missy didn’t want a molecule of her life changed, and the other half had already planned how to change every bit.

  That was too many halves for one body. She was exploding from the pressure of her halves.

  And she had to admit the possibility that there were no identical triplets, that Genevieve and Missy were drama queens with big hair.

  At last, Missy’s mother located her purse. Yes, the wallet was in it. Yes, her driver’s license was there too. She even had the car keys! What a good day this was shaping up to be.

  Kitty Vianello was a poor driver. She tapped the accelerator instead of leaving her foot on it, so the car lurched. She slowed down too early for curves and remembered to look one way but not the other. Missy was grateful for the invention of airbags.

  Stamford station was elevated, spreading high across the tracks, with escalators going up and down to the New York–bound or Boston-bound trains. Groups would gather on the upper level. Missy’s mother would not realize that no other classmates were here. Yet her mother seemed vaguely aware that the situation was odd. Missy distracted her. “Does Aunt Frannie still want to quit Jazzercise?”

  “You can only do something for so long,” said Kitty Vianello, “and then it feels like a rat trap. Plus, when you’re hitting fifty, you’re stir-crazy. Your aunt Frannie needs a change. We all need a change.”

  You’re about to get one, thought Missy.

  * * *

  Frannie Linnehan was yelling at the top of her lungs. She had good lungs, from shouting over loud music all week long. “I can’t do this anymore!” she informed her household. “I can’t get up at dawn one more time! I can’t be a cheerleader for one more hour! I’m giving up today!” She slammed the skillet around. “Philip! Do you want eggs?”

  “You can’t quit,” said her husband. “We need the money. I’ll cook the eggs. You get ready.”

  Frannie was grateful. Cracking eggs this morning struck her as dangerous. She might hurl them across the room just for the joy of the splat. Phil was right. They needed the money. She knew that Phil had little work. She knew how discouraged he was. She knew how he worried about their brilliant daughter, and the college Claire deserved, and the cost of such a college.

  They had saved and saved, but after all that saving, they had only enough money for one year at an ordinary school. Claire deserved four years at a great school.

  Frannie paused outside her daughter’s closed bedroom door. She knocked lightly. Claire was probably still asleep. Frannie would tiptoe in, reassure herself that all was well—

  “What do you want?” snapped Claire.

  “I’m leaving,” said Frannie through the door.

  “And?” said Claire.

  Not once, not ever, had Frannie Linnehan heard that tone of voice from Claire. “And I want to hug good-bye, honey.”

  “I’ll be up in a minute,” snapped Claire.

  “You don’t have to get up, honey, I’ll come in and—”

  “I said I’ll be up in a minute.”

  Frannie retreated.

  In the kitchen her husband was beaming. “Tommy called,” said Phil excitedly. “He has work for me! Tommy’s going to need me for the rest of the month.”

  Claire stomped into the kitchen.

  “Eggs?” said her father.

  Eggs made her think of human eggs. Of clones. Twins. Triplets.

  Claire adored two television shows in which the families had many children: one family where they had them one at a time, and just never stopped, and were now up to sixteen or eighteen kids—more kids than were in some of Claire’s classes—and another family that had a series of litters—two here, six there. Who could live through a pregnancy of six babies all at once? How did the babies live through it? It must have been tight in there.

  If Missy’s theory was correct, then Claire had elbowed Missy around, breathed her oxygen and taken her nourishment, so that Missy emerged a pitiful miniature who took years to catch up. But if babies had personalities in the womb, wouldn’t Missy have been doing the elbowing? Wouldn’t Claire have been the little shriveled one? And who was this Genevieve? Another big shoving kid or another squashed little one?

  “I’m not in an egg mood,” she said to her father.

  “What’s going on?” demanded her father. “You lost your rhythm or something?”

  I’ve lost my twin.

  I’ve lost my triplet.

  I’ve lost my mind.

  You two are liars. You’re not even related to me.

  My triplet is stalking me.

  My cousin-twin and the triplet are becoming best friends while I sit here watching fried eggs get cold.

  Claire would test whether a high-pitched scream really could break a window. That was probably true for old-fashioned, single-pane windows, not the energy-efficient layered windows in this house. She could probably scream all day and the windows would just stare reflectively back. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “You’re not acting normal,” said her father.

  And separating triplets is normal? Taking one third of a triplet set is normal? Never telling your daughter she’s adopted is normal?

  Claire pretended to study cereal boxes on the shelf. Mostly she was just turning her back on her father. Who wasn’t a father.

  She chose the dullest cereal: shredded wheat. A cereal that truly had nothing going for it. Not even looks. She opened the little interior pack with the three cereal slabs and crushed one into a bowl. That was what it had going for it. You got to crush something.

  “Dad’s working today, Clairedy,” said her mother. “Do you want to do something special when I get home? Maybe drive up to Clinton and Westbrook to the discount malls and buy clothes?”

  “No.”

  “We could call Missy and see if she can come too.”

  “No. I’m doing a project with Wanda and Annabel.”

  Frannie had never heard of Wanda or Annabel. For years she had pushed Claire to develop other friendships and spend less time with Missy. But was it wise after all? What was wise, in their situation?

  What was their situation? The dark fear that could still envelop Frannie after all these years invaded the room. Now, she thought. I should tell Claire the truth now.

 
But now was impossible, just as it had been impossible a thousand other times. Phil was grabbing his Carhartt jacket and his keys. Claire was pouring juice.

  Frannie wrapped her toast around the egg and bacon to make a sandwich and rushed to the car to eat as she drove.

  * * *

  Allegra Candler liked to sleep in on Saturday mornings, but the pounding rain woke her. I’ll fall asleep again, she told herself, snuggling back down.

  But sleep did not return. She felt as drowned by her problems as the backyard was by rain. Back when she was young and it didn’t matter whether she wore it, she had loved makeup. Now she had to wear it. She had to color her hair. She had to search carefully for fashions that did not date her. She had to deny herself all desirable food. She was surrounded by young women who were beautiful, thin and ambitious. They expected to overtake Allegra easily. She expected it, too.

  On the train every day, going into and out of the city, she was forced to listen to dozens of cell phone conversations. There were three topics: work and gossip, which she could filter out, and parents checking on their children, which she could not. “Hi, Jacob. Did you get your homework done?” “How was your piano lesson, Max?” “Go ahead and defrost the burgers, Emily.” “I don’t think so, Devon. In a million years, you’re not getting permission.”

  Allegra rarely checked on Genevieve, who seemed to lead a life that did not require parents, just a house. Vivi had been a grown-up from the start, a sturdy, reliable child who needed little attention. And this was a good thing, because the mother with the twelve-hour day and the father with the evening and weekend commitments had little to spare.

  Small children were cute and sweet and they loved Mommy and Daddy and were busy learning to ride a bike or else read. They all looked alike to Allegra. On the rare occasions when she showed up for a school activity, she couldn’t tell the other children apart. Mostly she was grateful that she didn’t have a fat one.

  The teenagers looked alike too. The girls had long hair, usually flat and shiny and caught up in a ponytail. They dressed alike, they talked alike. Vivi was exceptional. Even her hair had personality—thick, wafting black hair that took up space and could not be tamed like the hair of other girls. Her decisions were astonishing. By the time Vivi was a junior, she had chosen an academic sport as well as athletic sports and had even taken over the nursing home water aerobics class.